The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, commonly referred to as the Hague Abduction Convention, is a multilateral treaty developed by the Hague Conference on Private International Law. The treaty provides an expeditious method of returning a child taken illegally from one country to another. It was concluded on October 25, 1980 As the US State Department would not voluntarily inform relevant actors about non-compliance of foreign countries in adhering to the Convention, Congress enacted an annual reporting requirement obligating the State Department to publish a detailed annual report on the reliability and effectiveness of the Convention to protect and secure the return of abducted American children in foreign countries. It was hoped that the law would make available a unique and vitally important source of information to parents, courts, governments and attorneys worldwide. The Compliance Reports have been issued for each year since 1999 with years 2002 and 2003 combined in a single report. Initial reports were criticized for lack of information on what Congress sought. Over time the reporting of the US State Department improved until they began releasing a full accounting of the numbers of abductions reported to the State Department each year and the number of children recovered. Congressional discord on reporting practices by the State Department In April 1999, the US State Department, under congressional mandate, issued the 1999 Hague Compliance Report (1999 Report). Congress immediately, and harshly, criticized the State Department for violating nearly every paragraph of the law stating that State had violated their express intent in creating it. Congress imposed additional reporting requirements for the 2000 Hague Compliance Report (2000 Report) in section 202 of H.R. 3194, the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2000 declaring that State's April 1999 Report on the Abduction Convention had failed to provide information consistent with the intent of Congress in having a full accounting of cases and countries in violation of the Hague Convention and a listing of countries which were non-compliant with the Convention. Before submission of the 2000 Report to Congress, the Chairman of the Committee on International Relations, Congressman Benjamin A. Gilman of New York, wrote Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to remind her that the 1999 Report had "engendered a high level of criticism because of shortcomings in meeting the intent of Congress in mandating this report" adding that the amended Hague compliance legislation "emphasized the aspects that are